Thursday, 29 November 2012

Thursday afternoon, Kings School Grantham. Math class is full of students, however, the maths today is not an issue. An issue is chess match.Grantham Kings faced to one of the strongest teams - Nottingham High. The Kings, grossly outgraded on all boards, had very little chance to get a good result. However, it was not important.

Kings
Grantham A

½-5½

Nottingham
High A

NAME

grade

date
of birth

AGE
Yrs Mths

RESULT

NAME

grade

date
of birth

AGE
Yrs Mths

1

Joe
Scarborough

92s

15/5/95

17

6

0-1

Russell
O’Brien

131

18/11/97

15

0

2

James Kelly

91s

13/11/97

15

0

½-½

John
Crossdale

125

19/7/02

10

4

3

Haydn
Godfrey

69S

11/9/97

15

2

0-1

Ross McKay

22/10/95

17

1

4

Nathan
McKiernon

65R

20/12/95

16

11

0-1

David Somers

114

9/12/96

15

11

5

Dan Southern

51S

28/3/99

13

8

0-1

Graham
Garside

104

18/3/97

15

8

6

Will Taylor

73R

3/3/99

13

8

0-1

Karam Sangha

111

27/2/01

11

9

Grantham
Kings B

½-5½

Nottingham
High B

NAME

grade

date
of birth

AGE
Yrs Mths

RESULT

NAME

grade

date
of birth

AGE
Yrs Mths

James
O’Neill

UG

18/11/94

18

0

0-1

Sohum Dhir

113

3/11/97

15

0

Riaz Fazal

UG

17/12/94

17

11

½-½

Raghau
Sudarshaw

19/11/96

15

11

Daniel
Godfrey

UG

5/9/00

12

2

0-1

Satin
Ahluwlin

97

15/12/00

11

11

Karl
Southern

70R

27/3/97

15

8

0-1

Donald Flynn

5/11/00

12

0

Jacob Storey

UG

24/7/98

14

4

0-1

Ishaan Bedi

29/6/01

11

5

Will Knight

UG

16/3/99

13

8

0-1

Harjit
Nijran

11/6/99

13

5

It was obvious that some of Kings had certain gaps in their opening strategy, some of them had difficulties to execute the rule of chess properly and some did not assess their positions properly.The better players played rather complicated opening with not clearly defined pawn structures, like an English opening with White pieces and Modern defence with Black. Both openings are difficult to master.Chess is simply difficult game and the way to mastery is not easy.

Joe Scarborough (right) vs Russell O'Brian

In twelve games Kings made only 1 point only. Two draws were made by James Kelly and Riaz Fazal.

Joe Scarborough playing with White went into very complex rook and pawns ending and finally lost, but he was really close to a draw.

Scarborough vs O'Brian

In diagram position Black is to move. O'Brian played 1...Ke5 which was followed by 2.Kf3 Rf4+ 3.Ke2 and now the easiest way to win was 3...c4! 4.dxc4 Rxe4+ and Black wins. O'Brian did not see this motif; however, the White position was too cramped and difficult to defend anyway. Joe fought like a hell, but he did not find the way how to defend this difficult positionOn the following picture you can see how tough match it was.

Daniel Godfrey (left) vs Satin Ahluwlin

On the board you can see the opposite coloured Bishops ending and the position is on the following diagram:

Godfrey vs Ahluwlin

By his last move White rightly challenged the c7-pawn by playing 1.Be5. Black opted for 1...c5 and now the only way to draw was 2.bxc6 Bxc6 and there is no way how Black can get further.However and much to my surprise, White player did not realize that he could not play for win. He wanted to make wonders and played 2.b6?? creating another passed pawn for Black and the distance between passed pawns was three files. No wonder he lost soon. Playing correctly he could have gained another half point for Kings.It was really interesting to watch the enthusiasm of Grantham player. But if we want to get them further it will require some hard work. But my question is: Do they really want to work hard on their chess? Or they want to enjoy game of chess only without any further progress?I understand that the pressure on them is enormous and the main priority is to be academically sound. The problem is how to join those two things together.Nevertheless, it was nice afternoon and guys seemed to be happy.